Ah, Memories.

Hey, KAT.  Remember this night?

Yeah, me neither. Which means, I'm pretty certain it was AWESOME.

Okay. In all fairness, I do remember. This was the night you made me do the field sobriety test in the parking lot. Even though I wasn't driving.

But I just wanted to let you know that even though you're all knocked up, growing a special little life, and can't drink alcohol or eat cold cuts....

You can totally still eat these.

Note to self: Make sure this makes it into the baby book

The Pretend Husband and I were walking down an aisle in the supermarket the other night as we chatted and I rubbed my growing belly (Nice try, SJ, but I'm still not saying "uterus"!) He asked me why I was rubbing my belly and I told him it was because it was a bit sore. As I kept walking, I tossed out over my shoulder, "Get used to it. I'm going to be doing a lot more of it as this baby grows."

And then it hit me. There's a baby in there. Right there in the soup aisle was when I finally made the connection between "pregnant" and "baby." It didn't happen anytime earlier in the 15 weeks I've been pregnant. Not when I took a pregnancy test and it came up positive. Not in the 10 weeks since. Not as my clothes have gotten tighter or when I shopped in a maternity store for the first time. Not when I saw the little kid with the big head on the ultrasound. Not when I heard the kiddo's heartbeat for the first time. Not when the PH and I nicknamed the fetus "Herbie" and began talking to him or her through my belly.

Nope, it took the soup aisle and a half-sarcastic comment to get me there. I'm just grateful it happened before the baby actually arrived. What a surprise that would have been!

Forget Barney, we'll be rocking out to the Beatles

I'm big into the books and iPhone alerts that describe the development of the big-headed kid currently taking up residence in my belly (SJ: I refuse to talk about my uterus despite how often you bring it up!). This week, I learned that the kiddo has fully-formed ears and will be able to hear my voice. The book also said studies have shown that babies, once born, will recognize the lullabies their moms sang to them in the womb (SJ: are you happy? I said "womb." Still not talking about my uterus, though!)

The other night, I was on my way home from work and decided to sing to the baby. I started with a lullaby my mom used to sing me:

Go to sleep

Go to sleep

Go to sleep....

Uh

I couldn't remember the rest of that one so I broke into:

Jesus love me, this I know

For the Bible tells me so

Uh

Finally, I tried:

Hush little baby, don't say a word

Momma's gonna buy you a mockingbird

And if that mockingbird don't sing

Momma's gonna buy you a diamond ring

And if that diamond ring don't shine

Uh

And that, my friends, is how my kid's first lullabies came to be "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" and Billy Joel's "Piano Man."

I didn't become an alcoholic until after I got pregnant

(I wrote this last week and left it laying around in the drafts folder. Right after I wrote it, kk asked about how hard it's been for me to give up alcohol. This, kk, is how hard it's been.)

A couple of weeks ago, we went out to dinner with kat's lil bro and his girlfriend, Miss B. The waiter came to take our order and described the drink special of the night, which was something like a "white chocolate raspberry martini with cocoa on the rim" but I was too busy wiping the drool off my chin to pay attention. I don't even like raspberry flavor, but it sounded so heavenly, I made Miss B promise that, if she ordered it, she would let me smell it. And she was nice enough to do just that. And nice enough to pretend not to notice when I grabbed it halfway through the meal and smelled it again.

When we went out to dinner last week, I pointed out a woman at a nearby table who had a huge margarita that looked like it was absolutely delicious. I asked the Pretend Husband if he thought she would let me smell it and he yelled at me. Apparently, people will think it's "weird" if I ask to smell their drinks and he wouldn't let me do it. Still, when his martini arrived, he slid it across the table for me to take a sniff. Now that's love.

A true friend...

...doesn't mind when you invite her over for drinks and, although they may be lovely, they contain no alcohol.

(Although I suspect she did a shot with the Pretend Husband when he got home and I went to the bathroom.)

For all the preggos reading the blog these days (Kellie, I'm looking at you!), here's the awesome drink I threw together:

Equal parts orange juice and pineapple juice

A splash of ginger ale to make it fizzy

Grenadine, which, if you pour it over the back of a spoon, sinks to the bottom

A cherry

Drinking it out of a martini glass or champagne flute is a must.